1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a printing device, a printing system using the same and a printing method thereof. More particularly, the present general inventive concept relates to a printing device which limitedly authorizes printing when printing data requires security, a printing system using the same, and a printing method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an information-oriented era has arrived, the amount of processing data increases and also security concerns increase. Especially, in organizations or offices which deal in new technologies and know-how, data security becomes much more important.
A network system enabling several users to share a recording device or a printing device has recently become increasingly developed, so that limited resources can be efficiently utilized. However, the organizations or offices that adopt such a network system may face data security threats because unspecified persons obtain access to the data with ease. Therefore, numerous systems employing an authentication procedure to solve this problem have been developed.
FIG. 1 is a view showing a conventional printing system as one example of the network system as described above. Referring to FIG. 1, the printing system comprises a user personal computer (PC) 10, a database server 20, and a printer server 30.
A user performs a job with respect to data stored in the database server 20 through the user PC 10, and prints the data through the printer sever 30.
In order to have access to the database server 20 and the printer server 30 through the user PC 10, the user has to perform a predetermined authentication procedure. According to the related art authentication procedure, the user generally inputs his/her ID and password through the user PC 10 to obtain permission to access to the printing system.
After the authentication procedure of inputting the ID and the password, the user is allowed to use data stored in the database sever 20 and print the stored data through the printer server 30 unlimitedly.
Meanwhile, each data has a different security level. That is, the data are various, ranging from general data available to all users to top security data available to only the authorized user. Also, in general, the users each have a different user level according to user's job or position in office.
However, in the conventional printing system, access to the printing system is only restricted, and it is impossible to restrict use of data according to the user level of a user who is allowed to access to the system.
Also, when an unauthorized user steals an ID and password to gain access to the printing system, there is no way to prevent the stealing of data.